The Tesla end-of-quarter earnings call is always a great place to get additional insight into the workings of the electric automaker, as well as hints about future product. As usual, we listened in and have gleaned the more pertinent parts, just for you.

What is the NASDAQ Clean Edge Green Energy Index? We had no idea it even existed until NASDAQ sent out a release today saying that electric car pioneer Tesla Motors had been added to it (along with smart grid company PowerSecure International and Vicor Corporation, which makes electric system components). Here's how NASDAQ explains the index:

The New York Times is reporting that Daimler has decided to proceed with production of a fleet of 500 Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-Cell vehicles early in 2011. Like the Smart ED, the battery packs and power electronics for the electric A-Class will be supplied by Tesla Motors. According to Tesla chief technical officer JB Straubel, Daimler decided to move forward with the project after Tesla took the initiative and converted an A-Class for demonstration purposes.

Sometimes, technology moves faster than rules and regulations. For instance, in some parts of Kansas, shops must provide water troughs for horses. A more recently inanity is the requirement that electric vehicles receive an emissions "Certificate of Conformity" from the EPA to comply with the "Clean Air Act." And, while Kansan storekeepers have long been excused from abiding by the obviously obsolete ordinance, such is not the case for America's best known electric car maker, Tesla Motors.

By the time the ball drops in Times Square this New Year's Eve, chances are there will be more Chevrolet Volts on the road than Tesla Roadsters. Motor Trend Editor in Chief Angus MacKenzie writes in a new editorial that during the Tesla IPO road-show last June, CEO Elon Musk called his company a "technology velociraptor." However, it took five full years from the formation of Tesla to start delivering the first few dozen crippled Roadsters. It then took nearly another year after that to reach ma

Back in June, when Tesla CEO Elon Musk was out and about trying to convince investment bankers to buy the stock in his company at the initial offering price, one of the slides in his presentation deck showed some thumbnail images of the Model S and the currently planned follow-on models.

Who remembers Webvan? Go ahead and raise your hands. Hmm, that's not a lot of hands. Well, Webvan was one of the biggest flameouts of the late-1990s dot-com bubble. After raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and an initial public offering, it spent even more building warehouses and buying delivery trucks to take internet orders for groceries and deliver them to customers homes at the time of their choosing. Unfortunately, Webvan had management with no experience in the groc

In February, a tragic plane crash in East Palo Alto, CA killed three Tesla Motors employees: Doug Bourn, who was piloting the plane, Andrew Ingram and Brian Finn. This week, Ingram's family filed a lawsuit claiming that Bourn and the company that owned the Cessna 310, Air Unique Inc., were negligent in taking care of the plane and that Bourn did not have recent flight experience and was reckless for taking off in foggy weather. The Ingram family is suing Bourn's estate and Air Unique.

Himanshu Patel and Vivek Aalok are two people that you've likely never heard of, but you'll certainly become familiar with a report that they recently wrote for J.P. Morgan and here's why: Patel and Aalok wrote up a 38-page research study of Tesla Motors to determine the company's likelihood of success in the coming years. The report, written for current Tesla shareholders, concludes that Tesla Motors' stock prices may jump up by as much as 30 percent, therefore reaching $25, by the end 2011. Th

Any AutoblogGreen reader who lives by a Tesla Motors store – or goes near one on vacation – has probably set foot inside and experienced the high-tech, open sales boutique (oh, and the cars). While the eight stores currently open across the U.S. do a fine job of showing off the Roadsters, the road to getting them in place hasn't always been an easy one to pave.